Our street has been given a leaflet from UU about our drainage connections.
It's aiming to improve the quality of water that goes into local rivers etc.
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the website they have.
The houses were built in the 50s and the kitchen don't drain into the soil stacks .. they just drain into an open grid which I am assuming is part of the rain water system... If this is the case then after they have visited everyone on this street will get a notice telling them to change this. The soil stacks are cast iron so can you fit a new thing into this or does it mean a whole new system?
If changes are needed - is there any point trying to negotiate discounts with a plumbing company for them doing them en masse?
I am not sure why but many houses do use an open sink waste going to a open grid with a gully trap that connects to the *foul* sewer.
My parents house built in 1953 did this, and indeed I have done it here on one of the sinks - it just so happened that I forgot to bring in the sewer through the wall at that point, so I coupled in a short pipe from a manhole junction to a gridded gully trap.
I am bloody glad I did because its exactly where I park the camper and when the chemmy toilet needs emptying I don't have to bring it inside and tip it down a bog. Straight into that grid..well I take the grid out first!... and hose it afterwards. It then goes into the septic tank for processing.
First of all I doubt very much that this IS the case. If you have a soil stack and proper treatment for bog waste, then chances are the sinks are plumbed into that via what I described.
Even if they are not, its usually fairly trivial to patch into the existing system.
First of all take time to discover what you really have. In any case 'know thine sewer system' is sound advice. Somewhere there should be a manhole cover you can lift and you SHOULD see - and can test by running the sink - a pipe /channel going upstream to the sink trap and grid.
If so forget the whole thing. Its not a problem.
If you really are dumping to the fresh water soak-away or worse - to a ditch that leads to a stream - then at some point you have to tap into the proper foul sewer. Its not possible to state in the general case which is the cheapest option - that depends entirely on the layout.
It almost certainly goes, via a gully, into the foul sewer. The air gap means that, if the foul sewer backs up, as mine did courtesy of the gas company driving a wooden stake through the pipe, it doesn't back up into the house.
Probably, but not necessarily. It's possible that the location of the kitchen sink waste has been altered, or that washing machines & dishwashers have been added. These may now discharge into what were rainwater gullies (or grids).
To the OP: if the gully has a water trap in it, it's a safe bet that it is a foul drain, leading to the foul or a combined sewer (foul & surface water together). If it has no trap, it's likely to be a surface water drain, leading to a sewer or a soakaway.
It was perfectly acceptable for sinks to discharge over gulleys ... as far as I know it still is.
If this is waste water form sin / washing machine etc there is no requirement for it to discharge into a SV stack. It could ... but no need and often due to position of SV stack relevant to kitchen it made no sense to do so.
As far as I know I have never lived in a house where there were seperate common drainage systems for foul and rain water. The newest was built in the mid '50s. Well, certainly where there were seperate piped drainage systems leading off the property - in some cases individual rainwater downpipes went to soakaways but in general some of the rainwater went into the foul water system. Again as far as I know the kitchen and bathroom waste always went to the foul water drainage. This must be pretty common because IIRC you used to be able to get a reduction in water rates if you could prove that none of your rainwater went into the foul water system.
The site says: "Did you know? In more modern homes, clean water (rain water) goes down a pipe straight into the river, only dirty water goes to be treated. If pipes are misconnected, dirty water ends up in rivers " So does this mean that most new housing developments have to lay extra pipework to the neartest river, seperate from any foul water drainage? I though that in most cases new developments just connected to the existing main sewerage system.
Or are these weasel words? "In more modern homes" could mean either all homes that were built in the last 20 years (i.e. more modern than most). Or that in modern homes (say built in the last 20 years) more homes than those built previously have seperate rainwater drainage. Which in turn could mean it has risen from 0.5% to 0.6% of new build.
Do you have any evidence that seperate main drains are present for foul and rain water? Such as two sets of manhole covers?
Soakaways are the most common for "modern" houses. I built an extension in the 70s and I was not allowed to let the rain water go straight to a ditch (watercourse) at the end of the garden. I had to dig a big hole instead. Next door, two years ago, had to do the same.
OH says there are two drain systems. He is 100% sure that some kitchen water goes into the wrong drain - he says it doesn't have a wet trap bit.
but when it rains the grids in the streets block up but someone in the street has been told tree roots are in their foul drains...
The stream affected locally is also used for excess motorway water which to me would seem to be the bigger problem.
The M60 apparently drains into Moston Brook. I have no idea how though. Magic perhaps, although someone up the road reckons that pipes were laid along the canal when they built the motorway.
It ain't necessarily so! My house - built in the 1960's - has separate foul and storm drains, and all my rainwater downpipes go into gulleys with traps. I know, because I've had to reach down and get all the slimy leaves out on numerous occasions!
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